The Thatcher government, 1979–90

Abstract

The Conservatives’ victory in 1979 was decisive but not overwhelming. The party’s share of the vote recovered from its low point in 1974 to reach 43.9 per cent. The Conservatives won 339 seats, a majority over all other parties of 43. A Conservative victory had seemed probable after the collapse of the authority of the government during the IMF negotiations at the end of 1976 and the subsequent loss of its parliamentary majority. Labour had trailed the Conservatives by as much as twenty-five points in the opinion polls in some months between the autumn of 1976 and the summer of 1977. The party had suffered some major by-election losses in this period,1 as well as enormous losses in local government seats.